Fans of
the 'Drive-In' 50's Sci-fi/Horror/Fantasy genre may have fun with these
two: 'King Dinosaur: A scant ten million miles away, astronauts
travel to another “earth” inhabited by huge animals, reptiles,
dinosaurs, and a giant antisocial iguana. The Jungle: A Princess,
her advisor, and an American hunter trek deep into the jungles of India
seeking the source of elephant raids on native villages. What they find
are wholly mammoths!'

As many are aware I consider this style of film to be my
personal major film weakness... the worse they are the more I seemed
endeared to them. While these are both acceptable conceptual ideas - the
movement to production on the silver screen leaves a lot to be desired.
King Dinosaur(Aside from
Subconscious Cruelty) is the worst film I have ever seen in my
life. Painfully poor acting, horrendous costumes and camera
tricks meant to cut cost of special effects are as lame as can be. It's
not even funny anymore how bad this is.

Both of these 50's
films are no longer capable of disguising audiences by offering more
than they can deliver (ex. there are NO dinosaurs in King Dinosaur) but their
nostalgic value still has strong appeal. Hey, you no what you are
getting yourself into here folks!

Limping along behind the capsule stage revue titled "Michael
Rose's Capers" at the Holiday Theatre is a new film called "The Jungle." It has a pitiable
story about a white hunter, an Indian princess and her major-domo who set out to
kill off a herd of marauding elephants and find that they are wooly mammoths
left over from the ice age. Marie Windsor plays the princess who sports a pith
helmet, Cesar Romero is the grim Sikh and Rod Cameron impersonates a white
hunter. "The Jungle" is one of those off-the-cuff productions made precisely for
the Saturday-afternoon youngster trade which goes in for fantastic action and
silly improbabilities. This one has 'em all, from hand grenade-throwing monkeys
to innocent old pachyderms with fur coats.

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The
Horizontal is the time in minutes.

Bitrate:

Audio

English (Dolby Digital 2.0)

Subtitles

None

Features

Release Information:Studio: VCI Video

Aspect Ratio:Aspect Ratio 1.33:1

Edition Details:

• (Shares
the disc with King Dinosaur)

• Original theatrical trailers• Bios• Scenes
censored from the British release• Sample pages
from the original script, with director’s notes• Marie Windsor
Remembers "The Jungle" as told to Tom Weaver• Trivia• Photo
Gallery: Theatre Lobby Cards• Behind the
Scene Shots

DVD Release Date: October 31st, 2006Keep Case
Chapters: 12

Comments:

The interlaced sepia-tone VCI Video
image it is nothing very remarkable but it doesn't look too bad at times. It
has some dirt/marks but is sharper than you might expect. There is some combing
(non-progressive) but it is very tube-watchable. Audio is a bit inconsistent and
there are no subtitles. Some time and effort was put into the animated
menus and the extras (although most are text based and not very good -
the attempt is appreciated though). The DVD is actually dual-layered
sharing the media with King Dinosaur.

The film was much better than
King Dinosaur
in every area (acting, sets, believability of story etc.) and I was
entertained by the premise. The sepia kind of works and overall it must
have had some production dollars spent (but wholly mammoths... in
India??!?!). It's typical 50's teen-age Drive-In fodder with a healthy
aura of adventure fantasy!

The thing about grade-Z science fiction movies is that the more they age, the
more fun they become.

First out of the galactic gate is King Dinosaur (1955), a Jurassic-aged
movie that should have been called Welcome to the Neighborhood!. Well, at least,
that's what Earth should've said to the newest member of the Solar System, the
planet Nova, and just left it at that. It seems that due to some sort of strange
gravitational anomaly, Nova has scooted over so close to Earth that Man can now
successfully journey to another planet. And indeed, before you can say "Jules
Verne," America has already put together a crack team of scientists and doctors
and a sturdy rocketship to withstand the weeks and months of interstellar space
travel towards the strange, new world - all within the first 15 minutes!
Director Bert I. Gordon, responsible for such sci-fi delights as
Earth Vs. The Spider (1958), The Magic Sword (1962), and
Attack of the Puppet People (1958), was not one to waste time.

• Original theatrical
trailers• Bios• Scenes
censored from the British release• Sample pages
from the original script, with director’s notes• Marie Windsor
Remembers "The Jungle" as told to Tom Weaver• Trivia• Photo
Gallery: Theatre Lobby Cards• Behind the
Scene Shots

DVD Release Date: October 31st, 2006Keep Case
Chapters: 12

Comments:

If I'm going by the sources I have
then this DVD image is not in its correct aspect ratio (shouldn't be
widescreen) - so appropriately it is as flawed as the film it is
representing. In a strange turn of events VCI have 16X9 enhanced this
picture but it doesn't improve anything as the appearance is quite muddy
at times and chroma was evident. The screen captures give a decent
representation.

Personally
the most remarkable incongruity about this film is that the 'astronauts'
chosen for this mission are the most inept characters I can recall
seeing. I even heard that Bert Gordon didn't like this one. If you want
bad folks - look no further - you'll have a smile on your face the
entire viewing.